State’s Witnesses in Zimmerman Trial Put the Prosecution on the Defensive

With Officer Chris Serino on the stand, the lead prosecutor, Bernie de la Rionda, demonstrated on Tuesday how a fight might have played out between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin.Credit
Pool photo by Joe Burbank

SANFORD, Fla. — Prosecutors in the second-degree murder trial of George Zimmerman scrambled Tuesday to undo damage to their case by one of their leading witnesses, a Sanford police officer who interviewed the defendant hours after he fatally shot Trayvon Martin.

The witness, Officer Chris Serino of the Sanford police, had testified under cross-examination on Monday afternoon that Mr. Zimmerman seemed to be telling the truth when he said he had fired his gun in self-defense. The officer’s remarks made for a dramatic moment in the trial — and clearly benefited the defense — but drew no immediate objection from the prosecutors. The court then recessed for the day.

But early on Tuesday, citing case law, the prosecution successfully argued that Officer Serino’s comments about Mr. Zimmerman’s truthfulness should be disregarded by the jury. The judge then instructed the jurors, who are being sequestered during the trial, to ignore the officer’s statement — nearly 17 hours after he made it.

Officer Serino’s testimony, in the second week of the trial in Seminole County Court, was the latest setback for prosecutors, whose witnesses have repeatedly helped bolster the defense’s case. Mr. Zimmerman has said he shot Mr. Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old, in self-defense after he was attacked on a drizzly night in February 2012. Prosecutors say that Mr. Zimmerman, who identifies as Hispanic, profiled Mr. Martin, who was black, and followed the teenager through the town house complex where Mr. Zimmerman lived and Mr. Martin, of Miami, was visiting.

On Monday, jurors watched and listened to audio and visual recordings of a calm and willing Mr. Zimmerman being interviewed by the police shortly after the shooting. One officer testified that Mr. Zimmerman had shown no trace of malice or ill intent. After prosecutors probed inconsistencies in Mr. Zimmerman’s story — he said that Mr. Martin had jumped out of the bushes, although no bushes were found at the place he indicated — two police officers who took the stand said that the discrepancies were slight and that the broad narrative of self-defense offered by Mr. Zimmerman remained largely unchanged.

Mark Osterman, a federal air marshal who described Mr. Zimmerman as “the best friend I’ve ever had,” and who wrote a book about the shooting, recounted on Tuesday what Mr. Zimmerman told him about the events of Feb. 26, 2012, the day of the killing.

Mr. Osterman’s account largely matched what Mr. Zimmerman — who was photographed bleeding after the killing — told the police. There was one exception: Mr. Osterman’s contention that, according to Mr. Zimmerman, Mr. Martin had grabbed his gun but that he managed to get it back. That contradicted Mr. Zimmerman’s account to the police, in which he said Mr. Martin seemed to be reaching for his gun.

Other pieces of testimony may also have reflected poorly on Mr. Zimmerman. Officer Serino, who took the stand again on Tuesday, said the expletives that Mr. Zimmerman used as he was pursuing Mr. Martin connoted ill will — a necessary component in a second-degree murder conviction. The police officers were also clearly disturbed that Mr. Zimmerman, a community watch volunteer, seemed to have pursued Mr. Martin on foot after a police operator had told him he need not do so. Last week, a young woman who had been on the phone with Mr. Martin that night testified that he told her he was being followed by a “creepy” man, and that she later heard her friend crying, “Get off, get off.”

One of the clearest witness accounts of the fight that proved damaging to the prosecution came from John Good, a neighbor of Mr. Zimmerman’s. He testified last week that he saw a person in dark clothes on top of and repeatedly striking someone light skinned who was lying on the ground and wearing red or white. Mr. Zimmerman was wearing a red jacket that night.

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Jurors also heard Tuesday from Dr. Valerie Rao, a medical examiner in Jacksonville, Fla., who concluded after studying photos that Mr. Zimmerman’s injuries were “very insignificant” and “not life threatening,” and that scrapes on the back of his head could have come from just one strike against the sidewalk. Her testimony cast doubt on Mr. Zimmerman’s claim that Mr. Martin struck him repeatedly, banging his head on the pavement, causing him to fear for his life. But under cross-examination by Mark O’Mara, one of Mr. Zimmerman’s lawyers, Dr. Rao conceded that Mr. Zimmerman’s injuries could have come from multiple blows.

Mr. O’Mara also noted that Angela Corey, the special prosecutor in the case, had recommended that Dr. Rao be appointed, although she insisted that had no bearing on her testimony. The state also presented a television interview from 2012 with Mr. Zimmerman by Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, in which Mr. Zimmerman recounted his version of events before adding, “I feel that it was all God’s plan,” as Mr. O’Mara squirmed by his side.

The Sanford police did not charge Mr. Zimmerman in the killing, citing insufficient evidence and Florida’s expansive “stand your ground” law, but that decision provoked national protests. Six weeks later, after Ms. Corey was assigned to the case, Mr. Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder.

But many legal experts said this week that the state had overreached and that it should have filed manslaughter charges. The jury can still find Mr. Zimmerman guilty of manslaughter, but it would fall to the prosecutors to argue for that result without appearing to concede a weakness in their case.

Correction: July 3, 2013

Because of an editing error, an article on Wednesday about the trial in Sanford, Fla., of George Zimmerman, who fatally shot Trayvon Martin, referred incorrectly in some copies to the lawyer Mark O’Mara. He is one of Mr. Zimmerman’s lawyers, not one of the prosecutors.

Correction: July 6, 2013

An article on Wednesday about the trial in Sanford, Fla., of George Zimmerman, who fatally shot Trayvon Martin, misstated the prosecution’s argument on why Mr. Martin was targeted by Mr. Zimmerman. Prosecutors said that Mr. Martin was profiled, not that he was “racially profiled.”

A version of this article appears in print on July 3, 2013, on Page A15 of the New York edition with the headline: State’s Witnesses in Zimmerman Trial Put the Prosecution on the Defensive. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe